“Although François Couperin won his reputation as an esteemed composer at the ostentatious and vainglorious court of Versailles, under the patronage of Louis XIV, the ‘Sun King’, his work is often surprisingly discreet and intimate.

“Chalice Consort observed the week of All Saints Day by singing a Requiem at the National Shrine of St. Francis of Assisi, Sunday in San Francisco. Musical Director Davitt Moroney invited the audience to think, as the Requiem unfolded, about the lives of people they knew who have died.

“One of the great things about the San Francisco Early Music Society’s concert series is that it gives exposure to emerging ensembles and new collaborations. On Saturday at St. John’s Presbyterian Church in Berkeley, I heard the Baroque Band, a Chicago string ensemble formed in 2007 by violinist Garry Clarke.

“Arion Baroque Orchestra opens its 31st season and enter the new room Bourgie this weekend with a program-Rameau Rebel entrusted to Christophe Rousset and given three times. Contrary to what is suggested in the advertisement, the renowned French harpsichordist appears only as a conductor. …“

On this episode, Anna Pranger looks at“Chasing Goldberg” by Fred Lerdahl and“Variation on Variation with Variation” by Ralf Gothoni all performed by Lara Downes on the CD 13 Ways of looking at the Goldberg (modern piano).

“The haughty beauties that are the ancient colleges of Cambridge were definitely feeling the heat this past weekend, and not even the cooling streams of the Cam and its tributaries could assuage the heat of an Indian summer in the Fens of Eastern England.

“We opened our 2011-12 season this week with Artistic Director Harry Bicket at Wigmore Hall with two performances of a programme featuring music by Alessandro Scarlatti, Handel, Vivaldi and Venturini. Scarlatti and Handel were sung by renowned tenor Ian Bostridge,whileMr Venturini, despite his name, turned out to have come from the Low Countries, only adding to the interest surrounding his unfamiliar Sonata in G minor, a piece that particularly attracted the attention of Geoff Brown in The Times -

“"Sacabuche" is Spanish for "sackbut," which is the Renaissance version of the trombone, a featured instrument in this 17-performer group, their program entitled, Matteo Ricci: His Map and Music. A famous Italian cartographer, Ricci journeyed to China and in 1602 completed a map of the world, including the Americas, while residing in Beijing.

“With the Carmel Bach Festival's new music director in charge, Bach himself has risen from the grave of encrusted tradition. Under Paul Goodwin's lead, last Sunday's performance of the St. John Passion, reclaimed the festival's namesake as Western music's greatest architect.

“From a specialty occasion, a meeting of minds and interests and instruments for a week every two years, its classes and performances culminating in the sometimes casual staging of a forgotten opera from an obscure corner of the repertory, cast with singers soon to become Early Music A-listers (Suzie LeBlanc, Karina Gauvin), …

“Before a single track has been heard, Jordi Savall’s The Forgotten Kingdom impresses with its scale: a three-CD set packaged in a lavish, bound book that contains fifty dense pages of English commentary by nine different authors; adding the multiple translations, beautiful illustrations, and song texts, the book itself luxuriantly sprawls over 500 pages.